“This case represents a milestone in the fight against software piracyâ€”governments, law enforcement agencies and private companies working together with customers and software resellers to break up a massive international counterfeiting ring,” said Microsoft senior VP Brad Smith in a statement.

Lovely, says Tom, but if Microsoft really want to have done with people pirating their software Operating System they should just open source it.

Tom reckons battling piracy on a case by case basis like this is much like the little Dutch Boy sticking his finger in the dam – except in this case while the Dutch Boy celebrates, the dam is destined to burst in any case…

Open sourcing the software OS would indeed make pirating the software it redundant – if it’s freely available for a cost of zero, who’s going to go to the trouble of pirating it?

Unfortunately, here’s where this post stops… this isn’t really my area of expertise, and Tom doesn’t have proper internet access going at the moment… this story really bugged him though, and while we were chatting about it, I said I’d get something up on his behalf – however I don’t know enough about the area to make a meaningful contribution.

I’m sure Tom will revisit on his return… but in the meantime, it’s over to you – what do you reckon? Should MS look at Open Sourcing their software OS? What would the benefits be? How would affect profits? How would any negative impact on profits be offset?

I think that Microsoft will eventually open source Windows, but by the time it does so nobody will care.

That ‘nobody’ will include Bill Gates, as by that time Microsoft will be making more money from online services and support (witness the Vista support options that Dell try to sell Business users by default).

At least if they made it free more people would use it – including all the people that buy the pirated copies. They should be looking at clawing back the users they have lost to Linux, OS X and other operating systems. I hope they don’t, like many others I hate MS but it would seem to be the way forward.

Ah yes, it was indeed the OS that Tom meant coul be Open Source, that’s what was being pirated primarily in the gangs that were busted… I really wasn’t clear about that at all when I posted… it was late, what can I say :D

Well, I guess that’s the question Manuel… I know Gates let slip at one point that piracy in China posibly even helped with sales of MS products though – now that could be read a few ways, and as I said I don’t know too much about the area, but for example if OS piracy means that more software can be sold due to more machines running MS OS, wouldn’t open sourcing the OS result in even more sales again?

After all, while many are happy to use pirated software, there are certainly those who don’t trust it, or for business reasons prefer/need to be in compliance, and as a result may look to other operating systems.

If Microsofts OS was open souce would people go with it… I think they would, over other open source OS’s because for many people MS is all they know. Going with another OS means a certain learning curve/hassle in peoples minds…

On the other hand as you say, from Microsofts perspective, if it aint broke don’t fix it. And they’re not exactly in financial trouble afaik…

I would have to agree, Microsoft will never release any version of Windows as Open Source, there is no reason for it from their stand point. They are a commercial company making money, that is their business; like them or hate them, that’s just the facts.

On the flip side (reversing someone elses comment above), Microsoft will provide free online services to compete with Google.